The Spaghetti in Squash

Last week I did some pretty intense travelling. First my family and I camped out in a hotel in Vancouver in order for me to get a medical examination (I am in the process of applying for a green card so my husband can work in the States for a few years: Did I mention he got a job at Harvard?). Then I had to fly to Montreal for an immigration interview. For those of you in know, yes there is a consulate in Vancouver and yes that is where I first applied. Go figure, it has to be done that way so that is the way I did it. All the while eating a pretty heavy diet punctuated by some awesome meals.

Tofu hollowed out with shredded carrot, wrapped in 

nori, encrusted with panko crumbs on a bed of red and soy beans in an orange sugar glaze at

Accords In Montreal

First in Vancouver my husband and I went to Vij's with a dear friend, then in Montreal after my interview I found a nice quiet restaurant to dine alone Accords and then again in Vancouver before the tots and I headed back to Pender Island I hit up another quiet spot Gaia.

Roasted Garlic Polenta filled with goat cheese, honey, pear and arugula, served with a side salad of mixed organic greens at Gaia in Vancouver

It is no surprise today that I walked by a Spaghetti Squash and said to myself I must have that. I was in an all veggie mood and inspired by the spaghetti in Spaghetti Squash I decided to make myself a nice vegetarian dish. This can be made vegan by altering the simple tomato sauce recipe (use olive oil instead of butter) and leaving the parmesan cheese garnish off and replace with some crispy mushrooms (do the same, use all neutral oil instead of butter). For the squash I sliced it in half removed the seeds, guts and rubbed a bit of olive on the firm flesh then roasted it in a low oven for an hour. Then scooped out the insides trying to keep the integrity of the spaghetti like strands. I then put the flesh in a bowl covered with tinfoil to steam back in the warm oven*.

When the sauce was done I ladled it over the Spaghetti Squash and garnished with grated parmesan cheese and fresh basil.

The ease and slow cooking of this recipe/method allowed me to undo one weeks of dirty laundry!

photos by me.

*Turn it off or keep on low depending on how long until you use it.

Prague Street Vendors

Not quite home yet, but here are some pretty pictures from my trip.

PS in my absence something happened with one of the blog search engines that I had affiliated with my site. I have since removed the offending site and hope that there will be no more problems...

photos by me.

Braising...Vegetables

Here I am in my yard with nothing much to do... we are having a yard sale, I kinda just have to sit here and wait. We don't live on a busy street and I only started advertising the day before, sadly for my things anticipating new homes this combination does not make for a swift sale. It does however give me time to catch up on my blogs, this moving thing has totally killed my momentum.

I originally wanted to  post a recipe for corn muffins from the last issue of Gourmet Magazine (RIP), but where that magazine has gone I don't know (my only hope is that it found its way into a book box and it is safely and securely stored). So instead this is a garlic Scape recipe... What? Yes I know Scape season is long gone, but here is the good news, this is actually a braising recipe and you can use leeks, carrots, turnips, onions, and more instead- MB suggest endive and romain lettuce.

Earlier this June we went to an outlaying farm and came home with all sorts of goodies. Baby Bok Choy, little golden nuggety potatoes, various fresh herbs, strawberries and garlic Scapes. Neither my husband nor I had ever cooked with Scape, thinking that was weird we then thought "have we ever actually eaten a Scape?" It seems like we should have, we are both big food people and will try *just* about anything, but to our best recollection our answer was a resounding no. So what the hell, we'd give it a go.

Bombing around the internet led us to several Scape pesto recipes that sounded very good but my husband and I did not want to eat a whole bunch of raw garlic no matter what the consensus was.  So we turned to our friend Mark Bittman (OK in my head he is our friend) for a solution. We have always had good luck with his braising recipes and in particular leeks so why not apply that to the scape?

Braised Vegetables (Scape)

adapted from The Best Recipes in the World

Mark Bittman

• 2 tbsp butter or extra virgin Olive Oil
• 8-10 Garlic Scapes, trimmed and cut into 2" pieces.
• handful of cherry tomatoes, leave whole
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 3/4 cups of stock, vegetable, chicken or water (if I am using water I like to use 1/4 cup of vermouth)
• Fresh Lemon juice, to taste.

Melt the butter or oil over medium heat in a (oven proof) sauce pan that has a lid.  Add Scapes, cherry tomatoes, salt & pepper,  and stock to cover, bring to a boil, reduce to a bare simmer. Cover with a lid and cook on low heat until  very tender about 30- 40 minutes. Checking the liquid occasionally.  Each combination of vegetables will have slightly different cooking times. And if stove top space is an issue,  the whole thing can be transferred and cooked in a 350F oven  after it is brought to the boil. 

Serve with freshly squeezed lemon juice.

The end results were deeply rich brown caramelized stalks that melted in the mouth and tomatoes that popped as you bit into them. The Scapes had a mellow garlicky taste without the bite and tomatoes gave a nice splash of acidity. Come Scape season next year, I will re-visit this recipe.

photos by me.

Yet again another Salsa recipe...

I was at a wedding the other night and the first dance was a spicy hot salsa. I can't dance a salsa, I actually don't know any dances and the newly wed couple were beautiful, graceful as well as radiant making me rethink my lack of dancing knowledge. So this recipe is for them... Kinda, they are doing the honeymoon thing faraway.

This is a nice basic rule as suggested by Diane Kennedy the Mexican cuisine equivalent to Marcella Hazan. This is loosely based on a 3-2-1 concept. 3 parts tomatoes, 2 onion, 1 cilantro- salt, pepper, lime juice, and jalapeno (to the hotness you want, I like it hot).

Top photo by my husband (he was so impressed with the dance that I may just be able to drag him to a dance class or two)

photos by me.

This is not your Mother's...?

Each week I have been making one recipe from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie's Food Revolution and passing it on to my friends, family and fellow food bloggers. I have been asking them to pass it on to their friends, family and so on.... Hoping that we can get people cooking at home again. This week's recipe is a very home style meal.

First off I am a vegetarian... So this is an unusual meal for me to use as it highlights MEAT and is aptly named MEATLOAF. So why did I choose MEATLOAF?

First reason is because if I want to cook one meal from each chapter of his book I needed to address his chapter on Beef.  Second just because I have a certain diet doesn't mean that my children should share the same view, they are almost 4, let them decide later on what they want. In the meantime I will cook a mostly vegetarian diet and give them the option to eat what they want. Third and the most fun, is because as a child I hated it (maybe the whole reason why I became a veggie in the first place). An insipid loaf of compressed ground meat, hastily mixed with  dehydrated onion soup mix and saltines, baked and then slathered in a ketchupy tomato sauce. Yum, sounds good doesn't it? Veggie or not, it sounds down right blech.

The meatloaf dates back to 5th century, the romans had their own version of it, it is related to the Italian meatball and has a very practical application, it makes use of the meat that would normally be chucked. We know it as a convenience food that out parents would pre-make and order us to put in the oven an hour before they got home. This is something different....

Pot-Roast Meatloaf

from the chapter Homely Ground Beef

• 2 medium onions
• olive oil
• course salt & freshly ground pepper
• 1 tsp each ground cumin and coriander
• 12 plain crackers
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 2 heaped tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 lb ground beef- organic, grass fed etc, etc....
• 1 large egg
• 2 cloves garlic 
• 1/2-1 fresh hot chile (optional)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 15 oz can of chick peas, drained
• 1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes
• 12 slices bacon- organic, grass fed etc, etc...
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary 
• 1 lemon

You can prepare the meatloaf in advance, just put in the fridge covered until needed or if you are making right away preheat the oven to 475 F.

To make the loaf, finely dice one onion. Heat a pan over medium heat with 2 lugs (his words not mine) of olive oil, sauté onion, pinch of salt and pepper, cumin and coriander. Stir frequently. When soft and nicely golden (not crispy). Remove from heat, and put in a bowl to cool. Take the crackers and bash them up either in a towel or in a mortar and pestle. In the bowl add dried oregano, mustard ground beef, egg and crackers. Combine all ingredients, hands are best! Move to a cutting board and form into a log shape. Rub with more olive oil. Move to an oven safe dish, turn down oven to 400 F and bake for 30 mins.*

Meanwhile.

To make the sauce peel the second onion and large dice, peel and slice the garlic and finely chop the hot pepper (optional). Move to a large sauce pan on medium heat with 2 lugs (again his words) of olive oil. Cook for 7 mins, stirring frequently. Add Worcestershire sauce, paprika, chickpeas, tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. Bring to a boil and turn down and simmer for 10 mins. Check for seasoning. The loaf should almost be done!!!

Finishing up! Remove the needles from the rosemary and place in a bowl. Take the roast from the oven and remove from the dish. Pour the fat over the rosemary and mix up to coat. Put the roast back in the dish and ladle the tomato sauce over  and around the roast, top with slices of bacon and sprinkle the rosemary. Put back in the oven and bake for an additional 15 mins until the bacon is crispy.**

While the meatloaf is finishing off make a nice green salad!

To serve, slice up the loaf, ladle on the sauce and add a squeeze of lemon juice.

Again Jamie Oliver says this will feed 4-6, a full loaf will feed at least six!

*I made the full recipe but divided it in two and froze half.

**I baked the loaf with bacon 10 mins and broiled for 5 and it was perfect- my cooking times were slightly altered because I was making a smaller loaf.

So once again if you blog about this recipe and pass it on to others, share your link with me, or if you have another recipe you wish to pass it on share a link. Leave your link in the comments and I will create a separate link in the body of the text!

photos by me!

PS.... Still a veg, I used the delicious yummy sauce & a veggie patty as my meatloaf....

The meat for this dish cost about $11 and I had everything else in my pantry. Again this recipe start to finish took about 45 mins- that was with making a salad and cleaning my cooking dishes.

Andrea the Kitchen Witch's version: http://andrea-thekitchenwitch.blogspot.com/2010/04/pass-it-on-week-3-not-your-mamas.html

WTF Wednesday: The Price of Tomatoes: Food for Thought

WTF Wednesday: The Price of Tomatoes was written for  The Absence of Alternatives by Velva of Tomatoes on the Vine. 


This article gives some insight into the workers that make it possible for produce to get to the grocery stores, bins, restaurants and our tables. I will go a step further and say by removing the humanity element and reducing them to slave like workers, the Food is being removed from our tables and replaced with empty insipid forms that lack essence and vitality. 


I love tomatoes, they are the base for many of my family's meals, such as sauces, salads, soups, or completely on their own with a little seasoning and for that reason I search out my tomatoes elsewhere. I want them to taste like Food.


photo by me.

Another simple Tomato sauce for pasta

This is the simplest sauce that I know how to make for all types of pasta dishes- including the lasagne with fresh ricotta that my family joked about  on the weekend.... Yes I made the sauce too! Would have made fresh pasta sheets if husband hadn't stopped me.


The original recipe is from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking: Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter, but in good Italian Grandma fashion we started using what ever was on hand to make it. Our recipe as it stands goes a little something like this.

• The original recipe calls for 2 lbs of fresh tomaotes or 2 cups canned tomatoes and liquid. I sometimes combine fresh and canned together if I don't have enough of either or. Peel and core fresh tomatoes, roughly chop in halves or quarters.
• 1 medium onion peeled and cut in half.
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, peel and lightly bruised (not in original recipe).
• Roughly 1/4 cup butter quartered.
• 2-3 tbsp Olive oil (the original recipe doesn't call for any but if you have a good one, use it).
• Season to taste with salt & pepper.

Use olive oil to coat the bottom of a heavy bottomed sauce pan and add all the ingredients, turn to medium high, bring tomato liquid to a boil and turn down to a simmer. Stir and check every once in a while. When tomatoes get soft, start smooshing them with a wooden spoon. Depending on how soft and harmonious you want your sauce, will determine the final cooking time. We usually cook ours for an hour or more. The longer you cook it the richer the sauce will be. Once you reach your desired consistency remove the onion and the garlic. 

It is that simple.

There is a lot of room to play with this recipe, adding capsicum peppers, or dried chili, slow cooking a couple whole basil leaves or adding other classic Italian seasonings such as rosemary or oregano.

photo by me.

Heirloom Tomatoes

Probably because I have only canned a couple of times in my life, I find the sound of the popping lids exciting. I wait for it, stand over my jars eagerly listening for the tell tale sound that the canning processed has worked. 

I am amazed that my perseverance can accomplish such things. That in this day and age of pre-processed everything that this is still something I can do for myself.  Canning is not easy, it is a long process and it has some fear associated with it. First I had to buy tomatoes.... my attempt at growing them failed miserably, luckily I have a favourite source Garden Back to Eden Organic. GBE grows heirloom varieties in a greenhouse but not using hydroponics, this gives them a longer growing season and a better tasting product. It is also the reason I can still can in November!?

Next I had to core & remove the the skins... cram them into jars with the correct acid ratio and boil 85 minutes as suggested by the USDA canning Guide. It is the last two things that scare me.... acid, correct boiling time or what... each jar becomes a vessel of death? Botulinum is scary stuff, they (the USDA) even recommend that if you suspect a canned jar of containing said bacteria that you should handle it with heavy rubber gloves and detoxify, that any contact either ingestion or skin can and could be fatal. Fortunately the USDA's guide has a section on how to identify the spoiled food and I should not have to subject my family to undue danger.


I don't want to can because it is a foodie thing to do, I don't know if I subscribe to that label. I want to do it because I think of myself as a maker, that it gives me great pleasure and confidence to be able to do something that my family has done for generations.... and well I am a sucker for the popping lids.


Photos by me.